


Fortune fortune, smiling fate, haven't seen you much of late

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Beauregard Lionett Has Issues, Developing Friendships, Enemies to Friends, Fortune Telling, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Tarot, Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 07:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20671553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Beau barges into Molly's room at the Leaky Tap demanding a tarot reading and Molly graciously supplies.She wouldn't have asked if she had known the results. But maybe, they both should have.(AKA Molly does a reading for Beau and she's not too happy with cards he pulled)





	Fortune fortune, smiling fate, haven't seen you much of late

**Author's Note:**

> I actually pulled the cards for Beau, with my own tarot deck. I was very happy with the results, I thought they fit her well. I did the same thing for Yasha a while back and they were also pretty spot on, so maybe I just have a knack for this.
> 
> Anyway, sorry that this fic is so shit. I wanted it to turn out better, but everything else I wanted to include just seemed to out of character I couldn't include it. I hope it ended up working anyway. This is set before Molly died, so please, for the love of God, don't accuse me of trying to bring him back and shove his resurrection down your face. I've seen it happen on Tumblr and I don't know if I'll be able to deal with it on here. I just had this idea and I couldn't get it out of my head, so here it is.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it, for what it's worth. I know it isn't much, but I'm very proud of the beginning. Thanks for reading xx

Molly was seated on the ground with his back against the bed in the room he shared with Fjord when the door flew open and Beau stood at the threshold, illuminated by the light of the hallway. She looked flustered and embarrassed, but she marched her way into the room determinately. “Get your cards,” she demanded in that way only Beau could. “You’re going to do a reading of me.”

“Am I?” Molly raised an eyebrow. “And here I thought you didn’t believe in any of this rubbish, and I was only doing it to con poor, unsuspecting folks out of their money?”

Beau flushed. “Yeah, well, I’m sick of hearing Jester talk about how amazing your fortunes are and everyone else trying to convince me to give you a chance, and I’m fucking done with it.” She kicked at the ground. “It’s not because I’m curious, or anything.”

“Of course not,” Molly said, and Beau scowled at the smug look on his face. He reached upwards and plucked his deck of cards off of the bed and after removing them from their carefully kept cover, started shuffling them in his hands. “Sit down then, I don’t have all day.”

Grumbling under her breath, Beau sat down opposite Molly with her legs folded under her, and he held out a palm. “That’ll be one gold piece.”

“Fuck you, Molly,”

Laughing, Molly pulled his arm back and continued shuffling, before he laid out three cards face down on the floor between them. He turned over the first card with the tips of his nails. “The Page of Pentacles,” he said. A young man in a wide, grassy field with trees and mountains in the distance looking up longingly at a star encapsulated in a circle. “It means application, study, scholarship, reflection, bringer of good news, blah blah blah. Basically those learned types who spend time in the library with their nose in a book. Sounds more like a card for Caleb then it does for you.”

Beau didn’t give anything away, but he knew that she was impressed. It was in the way her eyes widened, and her mouth opened automatically to sprout a retort. He flipped the second card. “The Two of Cups,” A couple holding twin chalices, a caduceus and a winged lions head above them, a flourishing land behind them, both locking eyes in eternal love. “Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, _sexual relations_,” he wiggled his eyebrows at Beau. “I don’t think I need to tell you what that means.” Beau blushed. Molly had seen the way she looked at Yasha- and sometimes, he had seen the way Yasha looked back.

Laughing, Molly cracked his knuckles in an air of suspense, “And now, my dear, for the moment you’ve been waiting for,” he purred as he turned the card without looking. They both glanced down at it at the same time.

A mostly naked woman holding two sticks floating within a giant laurel wrapped in red ribbon, a man, an eagle, a ram and a lion each in a separate corner of the card, surrounded by clouds. “Ah,” Molly said, unsurprised. “The World. Assured success. Change of place. Flight.” He glanced at Beau from under his eyelashes. “That certainly sounds like you and the Mighty Nein, doesn’t it?”

Licking her lips, Beau looked pale and felt sick to her stomach. “Bullshit. What did you do?”

Laughing, Molly scooped up his cards in one fluid motion and put them back into their box. “Nothing, dear. I pulled the cards and I read them. That’s all. I don’t control what cards tingle at my fingertips.”

“Do another one.”

“For another one, I _will_ be charging a gold piece.”

Beau was looking frustrated, and a little embarrassed. “It’s just a trick, Molly. Fortune-telling isn’t _real_.”

“If it’s not real,” Molly pointed out gently, as gently as he could. “Then why are you getting so worked up about it?”

Gritting her teeth, Beau glanced around the room as if looking for an escape. This conversation was going downhill very quickly. “I don’t believe any of this crap. I know you’ve got spells, Mollymauk, there’s no reason that you couldn’t easily look into my head, I didn’t tell you fucking _nothing_.”

Molly reached his tail out and wrapped it around Beau’s arm before she could make her great escape. “Hold on just a fucking minute,” he said. “What’s gotten you in such a tizzy? They’re just cards, Beau, they can’t hurt you. Which card had the razor's edge?”

Instead of jerking away and telling him to fuck off like Molly expected her to, she just stared at the floor where the cards were once laying and breathed heavily through her nose. “The Cobalt Soul is nothing but learning how to do more learning so you could learn about learning in your learning. It’s bullshit, but it’s been all I’ve known for so long. Books and history and study. I may not have gone to a fancy school like Caleb, but I’ve probably done just as much study as he has.” She shook her head. “And now that I’ve become a part of the Mighty Nein, that last card… is just basically everything I’ve thought about for so long it isn’t even funny.”

“Hold up,” Molly interjected. “We’re just going to skip over the second card? The Two of Cups? Probably one of the most important cards you chose?”

Beau looked away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“If it’s Yasha, I totally understand. I mean, she’s a very attractive woman, dare I say stunning, so-”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.” Beau snapped, and Molly recoiled, a little shocked. They had done so well with getting along these past few minutes. Longer than normal. He was just trying to be nice, gods damn it.

Molly pulled his tail away and rested back against the rachitic wooden bed frame. The time for being nice was over. “If you don’t want to talk about it, then leave. I did the reading as you asked, without pay, might I add. You’ve got no reason to be here anymore.”

Scowling, on the verge of tears, Beau reached into her purse and pulled a gold coin out, and chucked it at Molly’s head. He dodged, and it bounced harmlessly off the bed, but when he looked back up to throw his own witty retort, the door was already swinging shut behind her.

He found her at the bar a little while later, nursing a tankard of something dark and strong-smelling. “All of this from the woman who doesn’t believe in fortunes.”

Growling, Beau dragged her tankard closer to her and held it by the rim with the hand that wasn’t encircling it. “I don’t,” she snapped. “Fortunes are just people being lucky with their guesses and pulling cards to make them look special. You’re not special, Molly. It’s mumbo jumbo.” She jerked her chin towards him and the cards he still held in his hand. “You already knew that I’m from the Cobalt Soul and that my life is based on history and research. You already knew that I had a thing for Yasha. And the last one could fit with anyone, not just me.”

“But The World means flight,” Molly said as he ordered his own drink. “And you’re the only member of the Nein who has ever run from me after a reading. You know what else it means? Misunderstandings. And I think that this whole thing counts as a misunderstanding, don’t you?”

Beau didn’t answer, just stared determinately ahead and sipped at her tankard. Molly shrugged. “Fine, if you’re going to be like this, I’m going to find someone who actually wants the cards I pull. Just be glad I didn’t pull the death card. You would have over-reacted much more about that card than you have with these ones.”

“You know, Molly,” Abruptly, Beau turned so hard in her seat that she almost fell off it, and Molly leant backwards away from her. She looked angry, and he knew that she was itching to punch something. He just hoped it wouldn’t be his face. “You have built a life based on lies and trickery and fucking with poor people who think that your fortunes could give them the hope and answers they were looking for. But you’re a great storyteller. You know how to weave a great disaster and make it an adventure. I’m not the first person you’ve tried to convince of your bullshit and I won’t be the last. So fuck off, and go find someone else’s life to ruin. Maybe, Jester- she’s always loved your stupid fucking cards and your bullshit fortunes.”

Her breath stunk. Molly wondered how many tankards she’d already had before he arrived. “Well, you’re entitled to your opinion, even though your opinion is shit.” He shrugged. “But there were no tricks. There were no lies. I get a feeling whenever I pull certain cards for certain people. Those are just the cards that tingled for you.”

Leaning forward, face contorted into something close to a scowl, Beau grit her teeth and seethed. “_Bullshit_.”

“You’ve seen me make my swords glow by cutting into myself,” Molly pointed out. “And you’ve seen me make people’s eyes bleed just by swearing at them, but the fact that I can pull cards out of a box that just so happens to be the right ones is too much for you to handle?”

Beau didn’t answer. She just leant back against her seat and ran a hand through her hair, biting her lip in anger. She was so angry. Molly just didn’t understand it- it was just a tarot reading for god’s sakes and not even a very good one! If she really hated it that much, then she shouldn’t have asked for it.

Getting the hint, Molly stood and brushed invisible dirt off of his immaculate coat, and stood from the rickety stool. The barmaid brought over a tankard, and Molly shook his head, pointing at Beau. The barmaid placed the drink by her and moved on. “You know, one of these days you’re going to stop treating me like a piece of shit because I might be a piece of shit to other people, but I’m not to any of you fuckers. I pulled your cards as you asked me to. If you’re in a bad mood, that’s your fault. I just did what you asked. So I _will_ go and find Jester because I like Jester. I’m realizing more and more why it’s so hard to like you.”

He placed her gold coin on the table and walked away, his coattails billowing out behind him, and when Beau glanced down to collect her money, there was a card under it, face down, the decorative back taunting her. She glanced after Molly, but he was gone, and she was the only member of the Nein still down at the bar. She hesitated, but after a moment, she pocketed the gold piece and flipped the card over. She didn’t know what it meant, of course, but it was pretty nonetheless.

Molly wasn’t sure if he would get his card back, but he trusted Beau, and he knew that if she didn’t give it back on her own that he would just ask Fjord or Jester or Caleb to convince or guilt her into giving it back. Either worked.

Fjord was already in bed when Molly entered, snuggled up in the covers, and he didn’t even open his eyes when Molly walked in, the heels of his boots clicking against the floorboards. “Did you find out why Beau’s in such a bad mood tonight?” he grunted and Molly laughed.

He sat on the bed and began peeling off his shoes. “She’s always got a stick up her ass, what can I say?”

As Molly got undressed, Fjord laughed and turned over so his back was to Molly, and Molly went to sleep wondering if the next day was going to be as volatile as this one.

The next morning, he woke up with a card sticking out of his pillow, immaculate and intact, and wondered how Beau had gotten in there without him hearing a thing. He flipped it over in his fingers to see what it was.

A naked woman pouring out two jugs of water, one onto the ground and one into a pond, a lush landscape behind her, a clear sky above her and floating by her head were seven small stars and one very large one. ‘The Star’, it read. Loss, theft, privation. Arrogance. Abandonment. Molly didn’t know much about Beau or her past, but he thought that card fit her rather well.


End file.
